Anti-Semitism
Acts or feelings against Jews; takes the form of prejudice, dislike, fear, discrimination, and persecution.
Aryan
A term used by the Nazis to mean a superior race of Nordic-type white people who were the "master race.
Auschwitz/Auschwitz-Birkenau
Largest and most notorious of all the concentration camps; was both a slave labor camp and a death camp.
Collective Responsibility
The act of holding a group responsible for the actions of any of its individual members.
Commandos
Work units that performed tasks inside and outside a concentration camp.
Concentration Camp
Prison camps established beginning in 1933 soon after the Nazis assumed power.
Crematorium
A large oven or furnace where bodies of death camp inmates were burned after the victims were gassed or died from other causes in the camp.
Death Camp
A camp whose basic purpose was to kill Jews and others.
Death Marches
Forced marches under brutal conditions required of death camp and concentration camp inmates by the Nazis to avoid liberation by advancing Allied forces.
Deportation
Forced removal of Jews in Nazi-occupied lands from their homes under pretense of resettlement.
Displaced Persons (DP) Camp
Camps set up after World War II by the Allies to house Holocaust survivors and other refugees who had no place to go home to.
Einsatzgruppen
Specially trained killing squads who had as their mission to seek out and kill Jews, Roma, and communists.
Final Solution
The Nazi team for their plan to exterminate all European Jews.
Fuehrer
Title taken by Hitler; German word for leader.
Gas Chamber
A room that was sealed off and airtight so that death could be induced through the use of poison gas.
Genocide
Term created after World War II to describe the deliberate and systematic murder of an entire political, cultural, or religious group.
Gestapo
The secret state police organization in Nazi Germany; formed in April 1933 and created to eliminate political opposition.
Ghetto
An area of a city in which all Jews from surrounding areas were forced to live until they were transported to a concentration or death camp.
Holocaust
The systematic, planned extermination of six million European Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Many non-Jews perished in the Holocaust, but only the Jews were marked for complete annihilation.
Judenrat
A council of Jewish representatives in communities and ghettos set up by the Nazis to represent Jewish interests and carry out Nazi instructions.
Judenrein
A German word meaning "cleansed of Jews," denoting areas where all Jews had been either murdered or deported.
Kapo
Prisoner in charge of a group of inmates in a Nazi concentration camp.
Kristallnacht
German term for "Night of Broken Glass," which took place in Germany and Austria on November 9 and 10, 1938. Nazi police smashed Jewish synagogues, houses, and shops.
Labor Camp
A prison camp where the prisoners were used to slave labor for German industry and the production of war materiel.
Mein Kampf
Hitler's autobiography with the English title My Struggle.